The Joy of Essex: write what you know

Dispatches and writing advice from a midlist author misfiring in the gig economy

Watching Wilko: Love and Death and Rock‘n’Roll at the Southwark Playhouse made me think about writing what you know. Jonathan Maitland’s excellent play is on the life of Dr Feelgood and Game of Thrones star Wilko Johnson. At one point Wilko, an English literature graduate, tells his Dr Feelgood bandmates that instead of covering American R&B songs they should be writing about where they live on Canvey Island. Forget the Mississippi Delta, he says, they have their own delta, the Thames Delta. He mentions that Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness in Stanford-le-Hope. Wilko, who admires Wordsworth and Blake, compares the flares of the Coryton oil refinery to watching Dante’s Inferno. Johnson wrote some classic songs about Canvey Island in the 1970s, one of his lines giving the title to Dr Feelgood’s album Down by the Jetty.

The same principle applies to writing. You don’t have to write a travel book about cycling round South America or scaling K2; like Wilko you can be inspired by where you live. My 2012 book The Joy of Essex was a homage to the county where I spent my first 18 years. I’d written a couple of features on Essex but most publishers didn’t consider Essex worthy of much coverage. My agent at the time suggested that my book idea should be expanded into covering the south of England; but my instinct was that Essex was unique enough to deserve its own tome.

Look a little deeper into an area and you invariably find interest. Who knew that Paul Simon once lodged in Brentwood in the 1960s and wrote Homeward Bound about retuning to Essex from a gig in Widnes. The Peasants’ Revolt started in Brentwood (insert your own revolting peasants joke here). In the event of nuclear war in the 1970s the government would have decamped to a nuclear bunker in Kelvedon Hatch. Southend has the longest pleasure pier in the world. Ian Dury lived in middle-class Upminster, Depeche Mode came from Basildon. The foundations of the temple sacked by Boudicca can still be seen in the cellar of Colchester Castle. Delve a little into any area and you’ll find plenty of interest.

I touted my book The Joy Of Essex around publishers without an agent and eventually found a home with Biteback Publishing. The success of the TV series The Only Way Is Essex helped, though there is more to the county than fake tan and the Sugar Hut nightclub. Since then there have been two more books on Essex, Excellent Essex by Gillian Darnley and The Invention of Essex by Tim Burrows, which proves there was some mileage in my idea. A personal career highlight came in 2021 when a copy of The Joy of Essex was included in a display cabinet by the artist Michael Landy in his exhibition Welcome To Essex at the Firstsite art gallery in Colchester.

There’s now a bit of a trend for looking in detail at your locality. Alastair Humphreys published Microadventures; Local Discoveries for Great Escapes, a book about cheap local adventures. My wife Nicola Baird publishes the blog Islington Faces on everyday lives in the borough and The Gentle Author has had great success with Spitalfields Life. Tim Moore wrote a very funny book You Are Awful (But I Like You) on visiting the least scenic parts of Britain while Tom Chesshyre published To Hull and Back: On Holiday in Unsung Britain.

There will always be a place for books about exotic travels. But if you’re stuck for an idea try looking close to home as well. Hopefully I’ve played my part in popularising the Thames Delta.

Pete May’s most recent book is Massive: The Miracle of Prague, published by Biteback. He is also the author of the memoir What Are Words Worth?